


Love is For Children

by madasthehatterforalice



Series: Soulmates Universe [3]
Category: The Avengers (2012)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Soulmates, F/M, Soulmate-Identifying Timers, Soulmates
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2012-10-24
Updated: 2017-10-08
Packaged: 2017-11-16 22:55:30
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 11
Words: 8,895
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/544747
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/madasthehatterforalice/pseuds/madasthehatterforalice
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Natasha’d never given much thought to her soul mate or the time on her wrist that counted down their arrival. She’d had that instinct beaten and trained out of her at a good young age. Love is for children.<br/>Love is for children and the Black Widow was never a child.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. The Black Widow's Mission

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [Johnlock Dabble](https://archiveofourown.org/external_works/12950) by spookynerdwp. 



> This fic, like the first in this series, takes place during The Avengers movie. It meant to be read along side "If It Takes Forever" but can be read separately.

Natasha’d never given much thought to her soul mate or the time on her wrist that counted down their arrival. She’d had that instinct beaten and trained out of her at a good young age. Love is for children.

Love is for children and the Black Widow was never a child. As a residual force of habit left over from the days when she still dreamed of being a ballerina, or dreamed at all, she always wore something between her wrist and prying eyes. Today it was a chunky bracelet.

Targets were so much easier to sway when they weren’t eyeing your timer for blackmail opportunities, not that she could be blackmailed, but the point stands. Nothing gets between her and her job, but funny how one phone call can change things.

“Barton’s been compromised,” Natasha notes the small catch in Coulson’s voice. The Black Widow has a new mission: Be Phil Coulson’s emotions because Fury’s “one good eye” can’t be distracted not even now. So Natasha will worry and seek and fight it all and do everything in her power to get Clint back because Coulson can’t.

Then it’s, “Oh, I’ve got Stark. You get the big guy.”

She is the Black Widow: master assassin, spy but the idea of seeking out Doctor Bruce Banner makes her stop in her tracks. She is what she is because of her training and control. Doctor Banner is the antithesis of that control and he terrifies her.

* * *

 

A soul mate was the other half of your soul. Since the other guy, Bruce would never acknowledge his timer. With his body so twisted down to the atomic level by the radiation he thought his soul just might be twisted too. But, often, in the dark of night with only the sounds of life to fill his mind, he would rub his thumb over his timer, over and over. Even if he did still have a soul, who could love a monster.

During the daylight or when he was working he could forget his timer. It had always been erratic anyway, maybe it was broken and there never was a soul mate waiting for him even before the other guy. He jumped at the chance to help people because if he couldn’t end his pain he could at least make it worth something. The people he helped, they wouldn’t remember him as monster that could and did take out an army. They would remember him as a good man even if he wasn’t really a man anymore.

* * *

 

 _And out the window. Of course._ “You should’ve got paid up front, Banner,” he thought aloud. His mind had just begun to churn with the possible reasons for the girl to lead him all the way out here just to run off when a voice spoke to him from the opposite corner of the small open house.

“You know, for a man who’s supposed to be avoiding stress you picked a hell of a place to settle.” From the moment she stepped around the curtain Bruce saw she was a person with blood on her hands. She wasn’t the calm demeanor and unassuming eyes she was portraying. She extruded a hard won confidence with each subtle sway of her hip. She terrifies him.

“Avoiding stress isn’t the secret,” he tells her, though he wasn’t sure why. But he was stressed all the time, worried that the other guy will find new ways to work to the surface and rampage out of control again. He was nervous and angry and scared. All the time, but this felt a lot like a negotiation and he fought not to let it show.

“Just you and me,” she tells him but there are lies in her eyes, so many he can’t see anything else.

“And your actress buddy? Is she a spy, too? They start that young?” his hands are twitching in that nervous way that he hated but somehow grew into after the accident.

She simply answers, “I did,” and he couldn’t help but believe it. Something in her step, that reminded him of a ballerina, felt like someone who had never had a childhood.

“Who are you?” Bruce asks, though he’s not sure why.

“Natasha Romanoff.”

She moved like a sleek black cat with a new toy she wanted to play with but wasn’t sure if it would bite her. Her gaze was cool, calm, and carefully blank. It was meant to tell him nothing about her but Bruce was so used to seeing fear in the eyes of those close to him it wasn’t hard to see hers. This was a woman who was used to being in control even when she didn’t appear to be but here, with him, she was trying too hard. They both knew he had a card to play, a trump card no one wanted to see.

“And what if the…other guy, says no?” they are playing a game here and they both know it.

* * *

 

Banner is nothing like what she expects, not really. She expected him to be more of the man she read about in the files on the jet. But this is not the nervous, awkward scientist the reports mentioned. Admittedly those reports didn’t have much interest in Doctor Banner, just the Hulk. The man before her was twitchy, true, but at the same time he had a wary confidence. Confidence built on knowing no threat presented can touch you, Natasha knew that confidence well, even if she was having a more difficult time hanging on to it at the moment.

She gave him the information she needed to with the patient “not going to hurt you” air she had long ago perfected. Banner was understandably wary but she had earned trust from far more paranoid sources before.

“Stop lying to me!”

Of course, those sources didn’t have a tendency to turn into a monster when she inevitably used that trust. For the first time she felt right and properly scared. He put her off balance and when she lowers her gun and raises her comm she catches a glimpse of her timer.

_0000d 00h 00m 00s_

_Huh._


	2. The Problem wasn't Me. It Was Both of Us.

The…aircraft Agent Romanoff herded him into stirred a flicker of recognition in the back of his skull. It was a sensation he was having to become accustomed to, it simply meant a memory was being awakened for the other guy. Bruce assumed something like this was employed by General Ross’ “Hulk Buster” units. It wasn’t a comforting feeling…and, at the same time, it was. These were not people who were going to treat him like a monster as long as he didn’t become one, but they would be stupid to not be prepared for it, Bruce was, every minute of every day.

The seats available were nothing more than benches attached to the outer wall of the aircraft. They were cold, hard, and metal but Bruce sat anyway, buckling himself tightly in even though everyone involved knew it was a moot point. Not even falling from an aircraft was likely to kill him. But the woven nearly plastic fibers of the safety belt felt like a security blanket and he couldn’t bring himself to go without.

Agent Romanoff did not follow suit. She simply kept one hand on the walls or ceiling to balance herself as the aircraft took to the air, moving about what Bruce was going to think of as the cabin, the aircraft did not lend itself well to traditional aeronautical terms. In everything she did she always appeared to have a purpose and always had that sway of confidence. Nothing could touch her, nothing could hurt her, not without her go ahead. Not even the monster in a man-suit that was never more than five feet away thanks to the confines of the cabin.

Shortly after they’d taken off Agent Romanoff handed him a tablet, to start his briefing, it was then that he saw her wrist.

_0000d 00h 00m 00s_

Well that was interesting. Not really pertinent, but interesting. Then he saw his own.

_0000d 00h 00m 00s_

Well…that…explained all the jumping around it had done. A person of her…profession, couldn’t stay in one place for long and commonly traveled without pre-stated plans. Did she know?

He studied her body movement for a moment. There was no way she didn’t know. She was in the business of intelligence, no way something like this passed her notice. Surely she knew but Bruce was more than half tempted to tell himself she didn’t to save what little of his masculine pride had survived the last few years intact.

“You’ll be working as part of a response team Director Fury is assembling to deal with this situation,” Bruce wasn’t exactly sure if he’d missed anything she said during his musings but he doubted it. Something in her voice commanded attention, demanding that “other concerns” be tabled. Thankfully Bruce had always been rather good at compartmentalizing. “Last year it was rather forcibly discovered that we are not along in this universe.”

Bruce could tell there was some aspect to that sentence that wasn’t _exactly_ the truth but she was too good at her job for him to tell which part. “They had a family feud that leveled a small town in New Mexico. The aggressing party, Loki, is the one who took the cube.”

Here he had to interject, looking up from the files displayed on the tablet, “Loki? As in the Norse god, Loki?”

“Near as we can tell one in the same.”

Bruce made an involutary "huh" sound. Norse gods being real? Stranger things had happened. Not that he could think of any examples at the moment. “So this team…”

“Is to be comprised of individuals of varying skill sets: myself, Tony Stark, of whom you are most likely already aware, and Captain Steve Rogers.” And that definitely fit the "strange" catagory. 

“This can’t be right,” Bruce looked back to the files currently displaying information on Captain Rogers, “I know I was out of the loop for a while but I’m pretty sure he died. In the ‘40s.”

“I assure you, Dr. Banner, this information is accurate. Captain Rogers was found, alive, a few months ago in the arctic.”

“The world gets stranger every day,” she cocked an eyebrow at, obviously questioning his right to make such a statement, which, to be fair, he really didn’t have much of one.


	3. Hot Butts and Age Gaps

The helicarrier starts to lift out of the water and Natasha indulges the view of two men walking to the edge. More specifically Bruce. _Not bad_. As far soulmates went if she had to have one she could do a lot worse than an ass like that. Love is for children but Natasha could think of more than a few things to do with _that_. The Black Widow was a master manipulator and having the Hulk wrapped around her finger would make her all the more deadly.

Seeing the residual awe on his face as the men finally allowed her to shepherd them inside she felt a strike of pride. It was odd to say the least, why did she care if this man approved of her work place? Still, if felt like showing off and Natasha forced herself to push it to the corner of her mind as they entered the bridge. She had to put Coulson's heart before her own confusing one. Clint must be found.

And yet, as much as that was true she found, that while her mind and eyes were tuned to finding Clint, her ears were tuned to the conversation between Dr. Banner and Director Fury.

"How many spectrometers do you have access to?"

"How many are there?"

Natasha felt a smirk form in the back of her mind, SHIELD resources usually took some getting used to for the science types. To her surprise, however, Banner, _Bruce?_ , didn't seem to need time to adjust, he simply rolled with it. This "soulmate" thing she had found herself in was going to be harder to ignore if he kept surprising her like that.

"Call every lab you know. Tell them to put the spectrometers on the roof and calibrate them for gamma rays. I'll rough out a tracking algorithm, basic cluster recognition, at least we could rule out a few places." The shy, tentative man from the deck was gone. This man knew what he was talking about and was comfortable doing it, "Do you have somewhere for me to work?"

"Agent Romanoff."

Something a lot like anxiety curled in her belly at Fury's summons, which did little to tell her if she was dreading or looking forward to spending more time with the one who, supposedly, was the other half of her soul. So instead she said, "You're gonna love it, Doc. We got all the toys."

* * *

 

The lab, Agent Romanoff led him to, was a bright shiny aquarium. He knew he could be observed “discreetly” from any angle in this room while he worked. As he wandered the room, familiarizing himself with the equipment, he could feel the agent’s gaze on him as she lingered in the room.

Should he ask her? Was she waiting for him to? Would _now_ really be the time to talk about something that happened without their consent or planning? _Now_ with the world in danger?

Bruce knew he should be more concerned with his freedom but he wanted answers, he did. But she was so despairingly young, so desperately aloof, and so lethally professional, he convinced himself she only paused to make sure he was settled and let her to leave without saying a word.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I know this update is short and a very long time in coming but I just now had the time and inspiration to work on it. I apologize.


	4. We've Captured a God...Now What?

Though she was speaking to Steve, her eyes never left Loki. She didn't like the look on his face when he was escorted off the quinjet. She knew that look, intimately. It could easily be mistaken for arrogance. But, no. Loki had a plan and he still felt it was going his way. She wanted to follow him. Wring the answers from him. But, Fury had dibs. Her turn would come. She could get anything from anyone, god or no. It wasn't cocky if it was true.

Though he was considering the data in front of him, his eyes were drawn to the parade in the coridor. He didn't like the look on Loki's face as he was escorted past. He knew that look intimately. Knew it in his bones though he didn't have a name for it. It made vague remembrances from the Other Guy crawl under his skin like a green itch. Being him was mostly about pain and panic and a blind rage but through it was a stream of something...something far too close to mad glee for comfort.

* * *

 

_"In case it's unclear, if you try to escape, you so much as scratch that glass it's 30,000 feet straight down in a steel trap. You get how that works? Ant, boot."_

_"It's an impressive cage. Not built, I think, for me."_

_"Built for something a lot stronger than you."_

_"Oh, I've heard."_

"A mindless beast. Makes play he's still a man."

Natasha looked up from her screen, straight at the object of that statement, and he looks back. Contrary to Loki's assertion, he must still be a man, because it takes a man, and one with a lot of backbone, to look a comment like that in the eye. His gaze doesn't deny it but neither does it confirm it. He simply takes it, like it is no less that what he thinks himself. It makes a quiet part of her soul weep to see his strength of mind and will and know how low his opinion of himself is. But the man is simple. The man she knows she could grow to respect, grow to...The beast, however, is still there, still scares her beyond measure in a way nothing could have ever prepared her for.

"How desperate are you, that you call on such lost creatures to defend you?"

There was nothing like having all your flaws painted out for your newly found soulmate. Though, Bruce supposed, it wasn't like she didn't already know. Hell, she was a spy, it was likely there wasn't actually anything about him she didn't know.

"How desperate am I? You threaten my world with war. You steal a force you can't hope to control. You talk about peace, and you kill because it's fun. You have made me very desperate. You might not be glad that you did."

Fury's words made it very clear to Bruce he needed to have a tighter grip on himself. There was no way he wanted to bring the Other Guy into a situation like this, even if the pressure might be on for just that.

_"Ooh. It burns you to have come so close. To have the Tesseract, to have power, unlimited power. And for what? A warm light for all man kind to share. And then to be reminded what real power is."_

_"Well, let me know if 'real power' wants a magazine or something."_

"He really grows on you, doesn't he?" Bruce had never really like Fury, too much shadow and secret and fire-power, too much to gain by putting the Other Guy on a leash, but talking back to a "god" like that? Yeah, he might grow to like him. On top of all of it Bruce seemed to have two sides lately: mild mannered scientist and "don't make me angry" and, while the Jekyll/Hyde parallel was not lost on him, he had no idea which side decided to speak up just then. Further introspection would probably reveal it to be some form of posturing for Agent Romanoff's "benefit" but there were larger things in play at the moment.

"Loki's gonna drag this out. So, Thor, what's his play?"

Natasha listened with one ear to Thor's response but she knew he had no real insight to give. He still thought of Loki as his lost little brother and it would spell easy defeat for all of them if they let Thor lead them into that way of thinking.

"He has an army call the Chitauri. They're not of Asgard, nor any world known. He means to lead them against your people. They will win him the Earth, in return, I suspect, for the Tesseract."

"An army from outer space."

"So, he's building another portal. That's what he needs Erik Selvig for." Bruce could nearly see the new piece to the puzzle falling into place. This was turning out much more interesting, and world altering, than simply tracking some radiation to its source.

"Selvig?"

"He's a astrophysicist."

"He's a friend."

"Loki has him under some kind of spell," Natasha had to avert her eyes, "along with one of ours." She was trained not to expose true emotion but currently she was burdened with twice the amount. When Phil, Clint, and Natasha established this contingency plan in case one of the soulmate pair was ever compromised they had never considered it might need to be implemented to this extent. Not just in time but severity.

"I want to know why Loki let us take him. He's not leading an army from here."

"I don't think we should be focusing on Loki. That guy's brain is a bag full of cats. You could smell crazy on him." Bruce would know, his nostrils had involuntarily flared when Loki had walked past and there had been a churning deep in his marrow that told him of the Other Guy's distaste. He felt something similar around General Ross since the accident. All of this told him Loki was not someone who could be reasoned with.

"Have care how you speak. Loki is beyond reason, but he is of Asgard. And he is my brother," Thor took a step forward, as if to defend in deed as well as word. Was he willfully blind?

"He killed 80 people in 2 days," Natasha said, stating the facts to point out his brother isn't looking to be saved. Loki was a threat but no matter how often Thor claimed to fight for Earth his heart would always lay with him.

"He's adopted." Thor responded, but the inflection make it sound more like a question, a brother seeking to excuse his sibling's acting out. Natasha really could have rolled her eyes had she not been better trained.

"I think it's about the mechanics. Iridium...What do they need iridium for?" At least Bruce was still on topic.

"It's a stablizing agent." Oh good. And now Stark's here.

If she was being honest with herself she felt a headache coming on.

It had been a long couple days and apparently the men she had been saddled with were children. Thor was still hoping to save his little brother. Stark and Rogers were pulling pigtails with Bruce in the middle. And Coulson was hugging a folder to his chest just to hold himself together. Ugh, men.  
It made her wish Clint was there. At least she was used to his brand of childishness it was the white noise that had gotten her through any number of dark missions.


	5. Flag on the Play

“You're tip-toeing, big man. You need to strut." Bruce smirked at Tony’s comment, even though it wasn’t completely for him.

It was a mating display. That was the only sane way of describing it: Steve standing there with his be-starred chest puffed out while Tony paraded his wit around like a peacock.

As the case was Bruce was loath to take sides, despite the corner Tony had talked him into, or step between but Bruce had been avoiding confrontations long enough to tell this one was about to go down a road both players would come to regret.

“Steve, tell me none of this smells a little funky to you.” Bruce had to take a moment, at least in his own mind, to laugh at the irony of _him_ being the level-headed one at the moment.

“Just find the Cube.” Though, he supposed as Steve turned on his heel and was out the door before he could see the lost look on Tony’s face, it did make sense. In his mind it was quite clear. Tony and Steve were soulmates.

For all Tony was denying it: the timing fit and no one else could make someone so armored look like their heart had just stormed out that door. It seemed Bruce was just going to be stuck playing referee. Until he got an equal denial from Steve he was going to consider them a pair of particularly bone-headed soulmates.

* * *

Loki had a plan. Nick had told her once, soon after she was brought in as an agent: Always assume your enemy has a plan. So Loki had an angle, one that, if his smug little smile was anything to go by, was already in place. What kind of leverage could he possibly have from his current location? What plan would have this as the place he wanted to be?

“Agent Romanoff, I’m tagging you in,” Fury told her when he arrived at the briefing table, “See what you can get out of that crazy son of a bitch.”

“I’ve never manipulated a god before,” she said, rising from her seat, “Sounds fun.”

Fury chuckled under his breath, “Natasha, I will never understand your idea of fun.”

“Oh, Nick, don’t think like that,” Natasha smiled at him in passing, “You’ll just never understand me.”

His laughter followed her down the hallway.

* * *

 She’d read up on Loki as soon as it was clear he was in play. It would’ve been irresponsible not to. Loki Laufeyson, alternatively call the trickster, the god of lies, the god of evil. Loki Odinson, the silver tongue. _We’ll just see about that._ She let a small smirk leak through as she crept into the room. Best to get him off his game early.

* * *

 "Love is for children. I owe him a debt," even as she said the words they felt hollow and empty on her tongue. The statement was at once true and false. She owed him a debt for giving her a place to belong, people to watch her back and as for the other part...

This isn't even something she should be considering. The Red Room and life its self should have drained this desire from her. But then it is easier to deny a hypothetical than a possibility...or opportunity.

Clint had once told her there was a special sort of joy to be found in having a partner who could protect you at your most vulnerable. There was no question in her mind, even at the time, he was speaking of Phil. It was a sad, cruel irony that Clint had spent their whole friendship trying to talk her into a belief in soulmates and, now that Natasha had actually found hers, he wasn’t here to witness it.

“Agent Barton was sent to kill me. He made a different call.”

The Black Widow didn’t dream. Wishes only distracted from the objective. But when Hawkeye had stood before her, arms spread, and offered her a fate other than death she felt like Alice. Natasha didn’t dream. Still, she had stepped through the looking glass and hadn’t look back. Even now she sometimes still expected to wake up from it.

Then she’d met Phil.

Clint may have given her a new life but Phil Coulson gave her something to believe in: Shield. Secrets with integrity. Death with honor.

That was the secret of Agent Coulson, the reason whispers of awe and rumors of legend followed him like groupies. It wasn’t his competence. It wasn’t his field record. Though he was all that. It was simply this: He believed.

He believed in heroes, in agents, in Shield. He believed in everyday men and women saving the world in any way they could. He believed so hard you wanted anything but to disappoint him.

As the Black Widow she had known and caused her share of fear but having the Hulk, Bruce Banner, as a soulmate was a special form of terrifying. He was at once timid and powerful. Definitely someone who could fit the role Clint had laid out, if only she could ever allow herself to _be_ vulnerable.

And now there was Bruce. Bruce who was making her believe something new. Something dangerous. Love may be for children but perhaps there were exceptions for soulmates.

It was a completely novel concept. That another person might be worth being vulnerable for. But the fighter in her still wanted things to be even. She wanted him to be vulnerable for _her_.

Even still the determination in her steps toward the lab rang to the tune of: _Save him. Protect Bruce._

Her duty was to Shield, to the lives of everyone aboard the carrier, but her thoughts were on Bruce. Perhaps if she could remove him from his expected environment Loki’s plan could be prevented…and Bruce’s green-free streak preserved.

She would not be vulnerable.

She would be strong.

She would pull through this and when it had all blown over…she’d re-evaluate.


	6. What We Fight For

By the time Natasha arrived at the lab the situation had graduated from “tense” to all out hostile.

“Did you know about this?” Bruce’s voice was accusing and betrayed. Loki’s plan _was_ progressing.

“You want to think about removing yourself from this environment, Doctor?” she asked, deliberately ignoring his question. At this moment it wasn’t relevant. The only thing that mattered was getting Bruce out of there before Loki’s plans could come to fruition.

Bruce couldn’t help himself as he scoffed at her. “I was in Calcutta. I was pretty well removed.” A whole world away from this mess. _Helping people_. People who _needed_ help, not liars who were conspiring to make him an accessory to WMD manufacture.

“Loki is manipulating you.”

“And you’ve been doing what, exactly?” That’s _all_ she’d been doing. That was the reason she hadn’t so much as mentioned their soulmating. She didn’t care about him. He was just another pawn to the Black Widow.

“You didn’t come here because I bat my eyelashes at you.” Natasha tried to get him to listen to reason. Soulmate or no, he didn’t leave Calcutta because _she_ asked, or even because Shield asked. He came because there were lives at stake. He came because he was a good man.

“Yes, and I’m not leaving because suddenly you get a little twitchy. I’d like to know why Shield is using the Tesseract to make weapons of mass destruction.” This wasn’t Bruce. There was something else here.

There was something buzzing around Natasha’s head like an insect she couldn’t swat away. It buzzed and buzzed until it buzzed on her skin, through her veins, in her words. Suddenly Loki’s smug smile made sense. He was manipulating _all of them_. The buzz was everything before she even had a chance to fight it.

When the explosion came it replaced the buzz with a ringing in her head and bruises on her skin. It was almost a blessing, definitely preferable, but the aftermath of the explosion was like waking up from a nightmare only to find yourself in a different one.

“We’re okay, right?”

* * *

He was fighting. Fighting the Other Guy harder than he ever had.

It was true, what he’d told Tony, the Other Guy wasn’t armor. He was every awful ugly thing Bruce had never wanted to see in himself brought to the surface and sent on a rampage. Above all he was anger. Anger at his father for loving him too little, beating him too much, and drinking too often. Anger at his mother for never lifting a finger to stop him. Anger at life for being so needlessly cruel. Anger. Hot and boiling and so ever present it made him numb to it all. It was the reason Bruce couldn’t bring himself to use the name public opinion had given the Other Guy. Giving him a name acknowledged him, legitimized him in a way Bruce could never accept deserving.

But that wasn’t why he was fighting now.

He wasn’t just fighting not to hurt anyone. He was fighting for _her_. His soulmate. He was fighting for the life he could at least daydream they could have together. True it wasn’t the 9 to 5 job, 2.5 kids, white picket fence, apple-pie life but he could daydream they were together, he could daydream they were happy.

"I swear on my life."

" _Your_ life?" _Not our life. Never our life._ Even the Other Guy could feel the pain of her statement, the desire, the longing to have his soulmate be his.

He looked at her with the last of his humanity and hoped she got the message.

_I'm sorry._

* * *

Knowing that the feral Hulk lay just below Bruce’s skin was one thing. Seeing it break out was entirely another.

For the first time in she didn't know how long the fear in her voice was real.

It was also the moment she realized, in this new world of magic and monsters, she was vulnerable. For all her “skills,” her training, she was still, at the end, just human.

She wasn’t surprised by the question in his eyes, “Who could love a monster?” But she was surprised when her mind automatically answers, “Me.”

It had never occurred to her that just as she was vulnerable, he might already be vulnerable.

Even as he raised his fist the horror that crossed her mind was not for her imminent death but at the fact that, despite the life she had led, it had never occurred to her that her soulmate might kill _her_. If her ballerina dreams were the last to be taken from her then her soulmate was the first. “Love is for Children…” _and soulmates make you weak_.

As last thoughts go it’s not a bad one. It rather aptly wraps her up and that’s fitting. 

* * *

There is a brief, shining, questioning moment when Hulk can think clearly enough through the raw confusion panic to ask, _Who?_ In that small window Bruce can see Natasha vulnerable beneath his ready fist and he screams, _Soulmate!_ in the voice only Hulk can hear.

It was a wonderful moment, an understanding shared between them…And then came Thor.


	7. Alone and Afraid

Coulson had told her of those moments in life when all you wanted to do was hide away from the world and drown your sorrows in chocolate cake and self-pity. Well, he didn't so much _tell_ her as implied it with a glance to Clint and strongly felt shrug. But she had never truly understood what he meant until this moment. This one with her heart awakened in painful ways she had never been trained to handle because she was trained to have no heart at all, her soul mate rampaging about the giant tin can she had never thought was a good idea to begin with (but Clint had thought was "Epic Awesome"), and every fiber of every atom in her throat felt like it had twisted itself into the Gordian knot.

For the first time in only god knew how long she wanted to cry, not for a show, not for a target, but for herself. To let every tear somehow ease the aching, hallow loneliness she shouldn't even be capable of. But Clint was still at large, and she and Coulson couldn't have a breakdown at the same time.

 _As soon as I recover Clint we are getting rid of this goddamn contingency plan because I can't do this again._ Even as she thought it she ignored the way it implied that she wanted Bruce to stick around. "This is Agent Romanoff," she swallowed heavily, "I copy."

Seeing Clint across the catwalk, there was no trace of her friend in his eyes, but she didn't let herself believe he was truly gone. She was going to get him back.

Of course her intentions wouldn't matter if Clint was able to get off a shot. Brainwashed or not he was still Hawkeye. If she didn't get in close, and fast...he wouldn't miss. So she rushed him.

He loosed an arrow but she kicked the bow out wide, sending the arrow off ineffectually into the ducting around them. _I'm going to smack him extra hard for putting me through this._ Dodge. _I never asked to have these stupid emotions_. Strike. _Never asked for a soul mate._ Swerve. _The hair? Really, Clint?_ Bite.

This wasn't the first time she'd fought with Clint. Not even the first time one of them had tried to kill the other. But it was the first time neither of them were holding back. The last time they had truly fought, not just spared to keep sharp, it had been Clint that was holding back, trying to bring her in alive despite his orders, despite her death wish. This time...this time it was Natasha trying to take Clint alive, and to do that she needed not to hold back. She'd always been the better fighter.

"Natasha?" One more good kick to render him fully conscious. _I am really beginning to hate this day._

She felt _vulnerable_ , raw and exposed in a way she wasn't sure she had ever been before and then the call comes in.

_"Agent Coulson is down."_

The shock must have set in then because the next time she was aware she was sitting across from Clint, strapped to a bed, in the med Bay. She was thankful for every second he was unconscious because that was another second she had to compartmentalize, to bury her fear, her sorrow, her vulnerability, to become the Black Widow again. No, not the Black Widow. The Black Widow, the tool the Red Room had shaped her into, would never be here, sitting at a friend's bedside. Not the Black Widow, Agent Romanoff. She could be Agent Romanoff, in control. Agent Romanoff could be strong enough to bear Phil's death, Clint's impending pain and her own. There would be time to grieve later. Now, Clint needed her.

"Natasha...How many agents did I..."

For a second she thinks he's going to ask, that she's going to have to tell him, and she's almost ashamed of the terror that moment strikes through her.

"No," she says. _We can't both be vulnerable._

So instead she turned it, made it about her. Let him hide behind the monsters and magic a little longer.

"I've been compromised." _I'm cashing in a favor._ "I got red in my ledger." _Just not the one you think._ "I would like to wipe it out." _Don't take my duty from me._

"Time to go."

_Thank god._

* * *

When he finally opened his eyes he took a minute to stare up at the sky. The last thing he really remembered was a glimpse of Natasha through the Other Guy's eyes. He doesn't believe in any god or higher power, science was all the higher a power he had ever needed. Still, at that moment, laying amid that rubble of his own making he uttered something that could only be called a prayer for Natasha's safety; a prayer that he hadn't just killed his soul mate. The fear that he'd done just that was nearly immobilizing.

"You fell out of the sky."

The custodian was like a breath of fresh air, for a stranger to see him and not run screaming.

"You were awake when you fell."

A stranger saw him in all his green glory and immediately thought him capable of good. Assumed it of him even. It cultivated the idea Tony had planted in him: that anger can be used for good if only aimed in the right direction.

Even though everything in him is screaming to run the other way, that he'd only make things worse, he still found himself riding toward Stark Tower. _She has to be ok. She just has to be ok._ Played like a chant in his head. It didn't matter that she was the Black Widow: a master assassin spy with as much blood on her hands as his. He knew he wouldn't be able to bear the guilt if he had _her_ blood on his hands. She was his soul mate. Even the Other Guy had recognized that. Maybe he could help, maybe the Other Guy could be pointed in the right direction, or maybe he couldn't. Either way he'd see for himself.


	8. The Weight We Bear

Steve was being obvious, sad and obvious; the only reason Clint wasn't seeing it was he was looking for the wrong thing, expecting the wrong thing. Of course Clint thought Steve was staring at him because he had only recently broken out of Loki's control, he'd be stewing in the guilt left there for a while...maybe forever when he inevitably added Phil's death to it. Clint was a very emotional person. Even though he knew logically nothing that happened to him or through him under Loki was his fault he still _felt_ it was. No one blamed Clint like Clint blamed Clint.

However, Natasha could see it wasn't Clint Steve was so focused on. Well, not Clint in general at least. Those sad eyes were following Clint's wrist. So she does what she can to keep Steve from asking the awkward question working its way up his throat: she focuses his attention on her.

"Good. We're going to need him."

It works. Steve looks at her, with only one more glance back at Clint, "So you and him..."

"No," at any of time Natasha probably would have laughed at the very idea but as it was she had a job to do, "Mine is big, green, and missing."

Before Shield, before Clint, she never would have thought she'd be doing this, exposing her soft spots, willingly, to protect someone else. Clint's huffing half chuckle at her comment just reinforced why she was sharing something so deeply personal with someone not Clint or Phil. She shouldn't even care but that idiot had somehow wormed his way into her heart. He told her she was just as much family to his soul as Phil just in a different way, she called him an idiot to keep from telling him she felt the same. Love is for children but _maybe_ there was an exception for soul mates; maybe when the world is saved she and Clint can curl up and cry over their chocolate cake together. Right at this moment she found she was willing to reveal all her secrets just to keep this pain from him a little while longer.

Steve didn't even seem phased by the idea of Bruce being her soul mate. Of course, the man had woken up 70 years in the future to gods, aliens, and an army from space so this probably just seemed more of the same by now. "Mine didn't even show up," he said with distinct notes of jealousy in his voice. If the timing in his file was accurate the countdown he had woken up with should have run down around about...Stuttgart...

Natasha let her mental calm break long enough to free a few choice Russian slurs in her own mind before she focused back in on the mission and tried not to think of the conversation she was going to have to arrange between Steve and Stark before this hell was through. What's one more thing, right? _I got this. I got this._

The rest of the flight was spent in a silence Natasha would describe as "companionable" but knew Clint would likely call "awkward as hell." But she was still a little mad at him for getting himself brainwashed in the first place so he would just have to deal. She was doing him a big enough service as it was, he could live with a little quiet. Steve didn't seem all too inclined to restart their conversation and she was more than willing to let it drop. They had a battle to prepare for after all.


	9. I've Got This, But Where are You?

It was blaringly obvious the moment war prevention stopped and the war itself began. Wars are rarely subtle but this one had its own almost supernatural trumpet. It barreled down on them with such immense bass Natasha could feel it vibrating in her bones.

And then came Loki’s army.

Rogers may have had the rank and training of a soldier but he was at his core a hero. The rest of them fought for redemption or even just because it was all they’d ever known, but him: he fought because he above all else wanted to help people. He would never be anything but distracted with civilians fleeing all around him. Their cries called to him. It was only his sense of duty to his “team” that kept him at their side. He needed reassurance before he would leave them. It was a bit touching, to see his instinct to protect, even two individuals as utterly lethal as Clint and herself.

"We got this. It’s good. Go."

Going head to head with an army was nothing they hadn’t handled before.

This war may have started with monsters and magic and nothing they were ever trained for but war itself? War was something they could do, something they had done, and in the end it didn't much matter if the enemy soldier was alien or terrestrial, provided they weren't bulletproof. It was certainly better than dwelling on the magic or pining for the "monster." She needed the distraction.

_I got this._

Killing, fighting, she could do in her sleep, like some people drove to work, mission completed purely on autopilot with no real memory of the journey your mind was so disengaged. But banter? That was a skill she had only been working on since...since she was finally free of the Red Room. Clint had been her dutiful tutor since he had decided to take in a highly trained assassin like a lost puppy from the rain. He'd even fed her pizza their first night out of confinement. She still didn't understand the connection between dogs and pizza in Clint's mind.

At this moment, however, he was not being helpful. Normally she couldn’t get him to shut up, their missions together a constant stream of smartass comments and pithy observations, but now, not even goading him with Budapest got much from him. His mind was much more vast than he gave himself credit for, she knew even a battle this intense, this otherworldly, wouldn’t take up his full concentration, it simply didn’t need it. She worried this would give him too much space in his head to dwell on Loki’s deeds. Clint needed the distraction as much as she did. Soulmates made everything more complicated.

Introspection could get you killed. And now was definitely one of those times. But Natasha felt she could hardly be blamed. After all, she'd never had a soulmate to find before. If he even wanted to be found.

_"_ _Once we get our hands on the Tesseract, you're in the wind._ _"_

He was certainly in the wind now. Shield had no way of tracking him, no way of holding him to any bargain. Though Bruce's part was complete the Hulk would certainly be helpful right now.

At least he was far away from all this…stress.

_Avoiding stress isn’t the secret_.

The Hulk had a history of only attacking what attacked him first, part of the reason Shield allowed Bruce to stay on the lam for so long, so provided no friendlies got overzealous he could be an asset. To hear Stark talk he thought so too. She just wished she had his faith that Bruce would show up.

She still had so much to learn about him and she was becoming less and less surprised that she _wanted_ to. She hardly had the time to be amused at herself for being so protective, so instead she tried to distract herself. Of course, that was the moment he chose to appear on a moped.


	10. A Spy and a Monster Fight Aliens

In the strange near quiet following Thor’s rather dramatic arrival she heard it long before she saw it. One lone motor chugging through the carnage toward them. She had never been one for faith, especially in another person, but she couldn’t think of another explanation for her unwavering certainty that it was Bruce. There were a lot of things she “didn’t do,” faith, affection, vulnerability, all of which seemed to make an exception for him. It was this faith that had her looking towards that sound rather than Steve as he began to give orders.

When he finally bodily came into view it was only circumstances, both current and those they parted under, that had her keeping her distance and even then it was only a half a step behind Steve. To anyone else it could be seen as an acknowledgement of hierarchy but she knew it was only herself taking shelter in the familiar while so out of her depth.

There’s a moment, as he’s parking his vehicle and making his way through the rubble to them, when she feels it. The deep pull in her soul connecting her to him. This was weakness but she found her relief outweighed her training.

For Bruce, seeing her again since his…discussion with the Hulk and the tentative revelations that followed was revealing. On his drive into the city he’d thought of what to say, trying to prepare himself for what her reaction to him now might possibly be. Knowing intellectually that the man fate had tied you to became a monster was one thing, having that monster unleashed on you was a different animal entirely.

As it was she watched him approach, her face unmoving, and he longed for the ability to know her well enough to decipher that look.

When the talking began both found themselves trying to have three conversations at once. One aloud, one with themselves, and one that they really mean.

“So this looks…horrible," he said. _What am I even doing here?_ he thinks. “ _Am I even welcome?”_ he means.

“I’ve seen worse," she replied. _You came. You’re ok,_ she thinks. “ _You’re needed here,”_ she means.

“Sorry,” he said. _She doesn’t even want you here,_ he thinks. _“I never wanted you to see me like that,”_ he means.

“No, we could use a little worse,” she replied. _I was worried,_ she thinks. “You misunderstand: _I need you here,”_ she means.

When Steve alerted Stark to Bruce’s presence it brought them back to the task at hand.

“Just like you said,” Captain Rogers said and Bruce wondered at the fact that not only was he welcome, he was _expected_.

Natasha was showing him small indications that, despite everything, she might _trust_ him. Another person’s trust, a person who had seen him big and green at that, was not something he’d had in a long time. He wasn’t sure he even trusted himself but he was definitely the closest he’d been since the accident.

“That’s my secret, Captain,” his reply was to Steve but Natasha knew it must be for her. She was the only one there for that conversation.

_Just you and me_.

She had so much to make up for. Yet he seemed to trust her anyway.

“I’m always angry.”

The control. The absolutely iron grip of will. To carry around the anger of the Hulk and keep it contained. Her soulmate was _strong_.

_Ok, Hulk. Let’s do this._

He could feel the joyous roar reverberate through him as the Hulk took over. It was a revelation, giving over to the anger, not trying to fight the Hulk but instead guiding him, reaching out with his mind, pointing and saying, _Get ‘im._

The roar the Hulk sent out in response carried with it the sentiment, _These humans are mine. We stand against you._ Or more probably, _Come and get it._

The screams of the soldiers surrounded them and Bruce could feel them crawling under the Hulk’s skin even as removed as he was from it. The Hulk was itching for a fight. Yet he waited. He waited because Bruce was waiting. Waiting to hear the Captain's plan.

"And Hulk..." _We're being addressed._

"Smash." _That we can do._

The Hulk's answering smirk reminded Natasha of Clint when he is being given permission to do something he was probably going to do anyway, a smirk that, on Clint, meant, "Ah, hell yeah!"

Watching the Hulk leap off she carefully shut all soulmate thoughts down, solidifying herself into her well-worn Black Widow persona. Her soulmate was safe, or near invulnerable anyway, time to go to war.


	11. A Scalpel, a WMD, and a Runaway Metaphor

War was exhausting.

Clint was right. She wasn’t a soldier. She could fight, she could kill, but in this capacity it was rather like using a scalpel to butcher a pig: Yeah, you’d get the job done but it wouldn’t take too long before your arm got tired and you began to think, “There’s got to be a better way.” Especially when the pigs just kept coming.

“Captain, none of this is going to mean a damn thing if we don’t close that portal.” In any other circumstance, she would have never allowed her fatigue to be so evident in her voice but this day was due for an end. Her shoulders were weary from the heavy secrets weighing on them. She’d held secrets before, so many secrets, but none with such emotional magnitude.

She still held Phil’s worry for Clint to return as well as the pain of him dying before he could see it happen. She held the pain Clint had to experience, losing his soulmate. She held the knowledge that Steve and Stark were the soulmates each thought they had missed. And above it all she held her own new awakening that she might be about to make an exception to her own hard held belief that love was for children.

Her scalpel was beginning to dull. This was truly nothing she had ever trained for. Of course, in this metaphor her soulmate was something more akin to a WMD, sure even with a guidance system there would be collateral damage but at least nobody could touch him so that was one worry she could put aside.

“Our biggest guns couldn’t touch it.”

Thor and Stark were cleavers, meant for lobbing off chunks. True they had hacked at it with all their considerable might but maybe it was time to put her scalpel to its best use.

“Well, maybe it’s not about guns.” She was hesitant to leave Steve alone with this onslaught but Steve was a butcher’s knife, the right tool for this job, he and Clint had that in common even if they went about it in different ways, he’d be fine.

The Captain seemed to acquiesce to her logic, “If you want to get up there you’re going to need a ride.”

She didn’t sigh but it was a near thing. The answer was whizzing above their heads and she didn’t like it one bit. “I got a ride.” Time for a mask. “I could use a boost, though.”

“You sure about this?”

_No_.

“Yeah,” _I got this,_ “It’s going to be fun.” _It’s going to hurt._


End file.
